Elinor Guggenheimer, Zealous Advocate For Women and Children, Is Dead at 96

By DOUGLAS MARTIN; Enid Nemy contributed reporting.

Published: October 2, 2008

Elinor Guggenheimer, who was already a grandmother when she began advocating for children, women and the elderly, and went on to become a national spokeswoman for their concerns as well as a prominent member of the New York City government, died on Monday in Manhattan. She was 96.

The death was confirmed by her daughter-in-law Jane Guggenheimer.

Mrs. Guggenheimer became the first woman to serve on the New York City Planning Commission, in 1961. She was the city's commissioner of consumer affairs in the 1970s, and led organizations that fought for more women on corporate boards and for the improvement of centers for the elderly.

She represented the New Yorkers, usually women, who have the advantage of wealth and the approbation of high society but need to do something more. In a profile in 1986, The New York Times described her type: ''They work long hours, trade contacts, raise capital and wield influence.''

Mrs. Guggenheimer made her Park Avenue home a center for Democratic Party fund-raising, and in 1969 she ran unsuccessfully in the party's primary to be the candidate for president of the City Council. She played major roles in charities, particularly Jewish ones, and used her position as a planning commissioner to help shape the city's policy toward parks and jails, and delighted in visiting both.

In the late 1960s, Mrs. Guggenheimer also had a large role in helping New York beat out other cities to obtain the Temple of Dendur from Egypt for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Among her many passions, the greatest may have been finding ways to care for children while their parents were working. Day care had been plentiful when women were needed in the workforce during World War II, but then became harder to find. Mrs. Guggenheimer's first step was founding the Day Care Council of New York in 1948.

From then on she was prominent among activists from around the United States trying to find day-care solutions. She emphasized that the welfare of children was at stake, not just the convenience of working mothers.

In 1973, Mrs. Guggenheimer founded the New York Women's Forum, to help women establish social networks to help one another, then expanded it nationally and internationally. The idea was that powerful women could help one another in the same manner as men who met in exclusively male clubs. She told The Times that she wanted an ''unabashedly elitist organization of women who would pool their collective clout.''

She started the New York Women's Agenda in 1992 as a similar vehicle, and also founded the Council of Senior Centers and Services.

Elinor Sophia Coleman was born on April 11, 1912, in Manhattan Her father, Nathan Coleman, was a commercial banker. She attended Vassar, then transferred to Barnard and graduated in 1934. She said in an interview in 1996 that her girlhood dream was to be a mathematician, but that her mother explained no man would marry one.

In 1936, two years after graduating, she married Randolph Guggenheimer, a lawyer in a family of prominent lawyers. He died in 1999.

As consumer affairs commissioner, Mrs. Guggenheimer had a high profile, once inveighing against a store in Queens that was selling fake lox. She led a nationwide boycott of high-priced coffee, ostentatiously giving up her own 14 cups a day. When chicken prices plunged, she urged people to get two for every pot.

Mrs. Guggenheimer wrote the books ''Planning for Parks and Recreation in Urban Areas'' and ''The Pleasure of Your Company,'' a guide to entertaining. She also wrote ''Potholes,'' an off-Broadway musical spoof of Manhattan, which had a short run at the Cherry Lane Theater in 1983.

Mrs. Guggenheimer is survived by her sons, Charles and Randolph Jr., both of Manhattan; three grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Her nimble wit came out in some doggerel she wrote for a commission hearing in 1970 on protecting Jamaica Bay from an airport runway extension. She wrote of the environmental threat:

''Oysters that could once delight us, now just give us hepatitis.''

She also liked to recall the time she visited a prison and told a prostitute she would help her get job training as a secretary after her release.

''I make $500 a night,'' the prostitute said. ''Can you do that for me?''

''Go and enjoy yourself,'' Mrs. Guggenheimer replied.

PHOTO: Elinor Guggenheimer in December 1997, receiving a medal for her advocacy for women from Hillary Rodham Clinton. (PHOTOGRAPH BY STUART RAMSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS)